John 12:46 – Verse of the Day 7/22/14

Why did Jesus live a human life? Do you ever think about why Jesus, who himself was fully God, took on human flesh in order to live a life just like ours? If someone asked you to give a short and simple answer to why God did this, what would you say?

This verse offers a nice summary of the reason why Jesus came, and the rest of John’s Gospel offers the details of Jesus’s life, teaching, death, and resurrection as the full explanation of that simple summary. In other words, John uses the images of darkness and light to summarize the mission of Jesus. John calls us to believe that Jesus has freed us from the darkness by forgiving our sin, and now we are to live according to the light by following Him.

Just like Jesus’s disciples, we are easily led astray by the darkness and we need to be reminded of these same things. Sometimes we are led astray by things that are clearly evil. More often we are led astray by good things that become bad when we value them more than God. Can you think of anything that leads you astray in this way? Pray that the Lord would help you not only to trust Jesus, but that you would wait patiently for Him to deliver us completely from the darkness so that we can live in His eternal light.